COLOGNE, Germany, Dec. 4 (UPI) -- Elderly people who remain physically active have a life expectancy almost four years greater than those who are no longer active, researchers in Germany say.
Dieter Leyk of Deutsche Sporthochschule Koln and colleagues say impairments to health and physical performance are not primarily a result of aging but of unfavorable lifestyle habits and lack of exercise.
Leyk and colleagues analyzed the stamina of more than 600,000 marathon and half-marathon runners and asked participants about their lifestyle habits and their health.
Leyk says studying marathon runners is helpful because they have to put in sufficient training hours for the race and the athletes accommodate this into their day and as a result, obesity, smoking and lack of physical activity are rarer in these study subjects.
Since the runners remain fit, reductions in physical performance are more likely to be the result of biological aging processes. However, these reductions in physical performance make their presence felt only after the 54th year of life and are slight, Leyk says.
More than 25 percent of the runners ages 50-69 had taken up running and participated in a marathon only in the preceding five years.
The study, published in the Deutsches Arzteblatt International, found older runners do not have to train any harder than their younger rivals to maintain their fitness.
